A golf-mad youngster is celebrating after he became a junior world champion. Elijah Gibbons, from Sandwich, won in the under-7 category at the 2023 World Junior Golf Championship, run by the British Junior Golf Tour, at the Amendoeira resort in the Algarve, Portugal.
Competing against 16 of the best young golfers, including players from Thailand, Slovakia and Italy, Gibbons came out on top.
He won the three-day competition by two shots - and it was left to dad Sam Gibbons to present him with the good news last Thursday at the last hole, with video footage of the memorable moment captured by mum Charlotte. “It was an amazing moment,” said Sam. “I didn’t really know my wife had got it on film! “It’s difficult at that age.
You, sometimes, wonder if he’s aware of the enormity of what he’s doing. "We didn’t tell him how he was doing. So when he putted on the last hole, he looked at me and I told him he was world champion. “He burst into tears and we had an embrace on the green.” The competition was played over three nine-hole rounds.